Pixar released a cute film about a red panda and people are being dumb let's talk about it.
Turning Red came out this weekend from director Domee Shi and is this fun story semi-based on the
director's experiences and her youth specifically awkward teenage years and an overbearing mom
the film is set in toronto in the year 2002 and has a lot of nostalgia for that time period
yes kids are calling it a period piece you're old now catch up before this film was even out to the
public there was a lot of negativity floating around people complaining about the art style
being cringed that this wasn't pixar keep in mind the same studio that brought you cards
to in general i wouldn't give this type of stuff attention because it feels like angry 13 year olds
trying to bait people into getting angry however then the internet lit up when a film critic from
cinema blind had a pretty scathing review that rubbed people the wrong way that has since been
removed from the website specifically the wording of the article citing a lack of relatability
some pixar films are made for a universal audience turning red is not the target audience for this
one feels very specific and very narrow and went on further to say by rooting turning red very
specifically in the asian community of toronto the film legitimately feels like it was made
for domeshi's friends and immediate family members which is fine but also a tad limiting in its scope
universal appeal while this review at best is ignorant in the way it's written it still
felt baffling to mention unlimited scope as it feels arbitrary ah pixar the universal
studio in their broad stories like owen wilson as a talking car a scottish girl's mom turning
into a bear and owen wilson as a talking car two more time ultimately this whole hubbub on this
review did feel a little odd to me as this and the animation style gave it the label of controversial
but in actuality the film is doing incredibly well critically like every time this is brought up as
if there's an equal emotion of hate to love this film is getting which i'll touch on that later
but if you'll allow me to put on my conspiracy hat for a moment it did seem odd that the news
came out the same day that disney was backing the don't say gay bill that this bad article felt like
it was getting talked about more like some one mean guy was more important to dunk on than the
most influential company in media overtly saying don't you hate it when the gay people do the thing
but not my hill not my mole in general turning red was slapped with a label of controversial
depending on which sides of the internet on you'd get the article i'd mentioned but others received
pixar's horniest film as the main controversy which i don't really want to get into that
mostly because this is a lot of angry people you can easily guess who that don't want any talk of
periods or their children to know about that but if there was anyone who paid a lick of attention
to pixar's start the studio was literally made because they wanted to animate 3d boobs i only
bring this up because it led to certain types of people being mad it talks about menstruation
at all and people think that's for the devil or whatever i don't really want to spend time on that
because i think this is a small group of people that are going to be bad about virtually anything
but all of this is just laying the scene for what i wanted to get to schefrelis's review
on turning red but quickly before getting that i have some quick thoughts on the film and youtubers
in general personally i really love turning red it feels like a love letter to the weird times
of being a teenager in a very unique way i saw a decent amount of people mention the premise was a
period metaphor but it very much feels like a film about the weirdness of puberty rather than solely
periods kids do embarrassing stuff like labeling themselves as the prince of darkness on facebook
you know hypothetically speaking why is he like this the central message basically being that
meme do not kill the part of you that is cringe kill the part of you that cringes is a really
important lesson for kids that is really well done 8 out of 10. and maybe i got a lot more out
of this because i have a lot of people in my life that added a lot of insight to the cultural stuff
before this i'd like to say in general i haven't watched a lot of film youtubers because i was
and still to some extent am a prick the whole reason i got into movie reviewing was because
i saw people like stuckman john's in black nerd comedy reviewing films and me thinking
i knew that my first channel i made got moderate success for filming on powerpoint and i'd see
other channels pop up like carson runquist on stranger things and i thought oh cool neat then
that was soon followed by fantastic mr fox's my favorite movie which at the time i was like no
that's my favorite movie because at the time it was my favorite movie and i wanted to maintain
being a special little snowflake so in general i don't know a lot of youtubers that talk about
film i was aware of chefrellas but i don't think i've ever watched one of his videos but
i do remember when my computer bricked itself and i lost everything for a ratatouille video
i saw his video pop up in my recommends about ratatouille the day after again i'm the
problem no one has a singular right to talking about a universally beloved film about a rat
i don't even say this as i don't even know you i just bring it up because i have no clue how
in line this video is with the rest of his stuff and from a brief twitter search i did even see
fans calling this a miss which leads me to one of the dumbest and dismissive reviews i've ever seen
some good ideas at play here but an absolute mess of an execution attic just watch lady bird or only
yesterday instead edit here's my less dismissive and more elaborated on thoughts generally i have
dozens of people blocked on letterbox to avoid seeing dumb takes like this but it was shared
in a film discord i'm a part of so here we are i absolutely hate the idea of just watch good
film i like to diminish the quality of a film like you really looked at these films and went
too many women i loved both only yesterday and ladybird but they are very different from what
turning red is going for it's like if my takeaway from coco was uh stuffed with mexicans just watch
itu mama tambien and breaking bad instead i just think people are quick to jump to this thing like
that thing when there are like seven stories when you boil it down there are literally thousands of
coming-of-age films for guys to watch and just because the time period and mother-daughter
dynamics existing they are the same anyway i watched the whole video because i was curious
how the less dismissive and more elaborated thoughts would go typically i'd stay away from
youtuber is wrong style videos even though there's a couple of times i've thought about it just to
get it out of the way i don't think any of this is malicious in this video on top of him going out of
his way to recognize other opinions at the end of the day preferences or whatever got it good
give me one in general i just found this to be an incredibly predictable and formulaic film
again personally i really hate this other type of criticism because i think it is used flippantly to
justify your feelings like the movie has to lay the groundwork for a conclusion to happen that's
how movies work you're not some megamind because you predicted an ending it didn't give you an
m night shyamalan level twist literally no one would have seen coming give me one like they
briefly touch on generational trauma here four months after encanto released and explored the
topic with much more depth saying well in kanto did generational trauma better is one of the
funniest statements i've seen like yep only one movie on this very ubiquitous thing that is very
different from culture to culture to me as soon as you bring in a different culture for the same
theme a movie has it is vastly different give me one but only yesterday i already talked about this
topic and did it in a more grounded and far less immature way this is again something that grinds
my peers only yesterday is the definitive talking about periods moving why did anyone ever write
a superhero if it was worse than superman why did scorsese make a mafia movie after godfather
clearly we only need one film in each category unless it's better i know he clarifies on this
topic but only yesterday is a self-reflection on the teenage years in your own now adult age
turning red is a more farcical look at puberty in general as a kid give me one ted i wrapped my
brain trying to figure out why this movie wasn't really working for me when something like luca did
and i think it's because with luca there were clear stakes she's super popular now because
she's a panda so i guess now there's no stakes other than hiding the fact that she's being a
panda for profit from her mother lieutenant stakes i find this argument to be pretty bad
as the central conflict is not about hiding her panda like luca at all but instead getting to the
concert and avoiding her mom finding it out these are stakes that very apparently exist in this film
which they establish in the very beginning when her mom embarrasses her for stuff in her journal
this is to set the impact of actions to compare it to luca equating it lacking stakes feels bizarre
this film is focused on the idea of parents not understanding their kids and coming into your
own identity separate from your family how did her mother not find out about that for so long
she's so snoopy how did how did she not and to the point of the mom finding out a this is in fact a
movie b a mother can be trusting to a certain degree if mei kind of hasn't shown a reason to
not be trusted give me one i also think it's kind of weird how none of the other kids besides mae's
friends like her unless she's a panda this is just dumb mace friends are clearly a weirder bunch
not the popular kids kids are shallow and love animals if i could magically turn into a fluffy
animal in middle school i'm sure it would bring my popularity up give me one another thing i really
didn't like in this was the mother character and how cartoonishly overbearing she was i'm sorry
this woman is a lunatic with absolutely no self-awareness and i couldn't get invested
in mei's embarrassment in that scene because it just felt so detached from reality again a point
chiralis later acknowledges mother dynamics can be really weird like this sometimes there's plenty
of moms i know that would call out a gas station worker if they thought their daughter was hitting
on them but even if we don't see that this is the central conflict it stakes mae is masking
to appease her mom and doesn't feel like she can truly be herself which is imperative to understand
for the conclusion give me one then she lurks outside the school window to give mae her pads
instead of just buzzing in and giving them to the front office like a normal [ __ ] person but this
is preposterous i had like made some some potential new friends and then one of them goes
who's that lady hiding behind the tree and i look and it's my mom wearing a pair of sunglasses
this movie is so aggressively cartoonish which is a good thing for the comedy but not when attempted
comedy completely overshadows reality take a look at something like mitchells versus the
machines which is another aggressively cartoonish movie but the emotional moments in this movie hit
because they're more realistic this is actually a really interesting comparison because i think
the mitchells versus the machines in turning red do actually bear a good comparison in that
they are able to have barker's comedy in really resonating emotional moments but differ in being
about a daughter who already knows who she is in compromising with her father versus a
daughter standing up for who she is to her mother to say turning red's emotional moments don't feel
grounded really feels dismissive for what they're actually doing they have this great moment with
mae and her friends where she's controlling her feelings because her friends are accepting of her
so it's not about concealing it's instead about being at peace with who you are and not having
to change for other people on top of the emotional moments with mei and her parents that absolutely
tore at my heartstrings that don't feel convoluted specifically with the mom it makes this moment
with may's friends that much more impactful when you think may's mom didn't have a support group
like this when she was younger give me one and the mom's whole journey throughout the movie is
just so predictable as well again just because something is obviously going to happen doesn't
make it bad i get that if you're not vibing with the film then maybe it sticks out more but you
could do this with several of the films already mentioned oh well they'd find nemo at the end
of finding nemo i knew that mitchell would beat the machines and i'll get along called it give
me one to use another example ladybird has some overlap with this movie in terms of its premise
it's about a teenage girl growing up in 2002 who has a tumultuous relationship with her mother
bringing up ladybird again is really funny to me because if you hadn't seen either of these films
and watched this video you'd assume they were beat for be identical and they're just not at all
similar but even if they were and keep in mind i love all of the films mentioned there doesn't
need to be a benchmark of you have to be better than this otherwise don't make it give me one
but i do feel like it's a movie with a lot of potential to connect with a lot of people and i
really don't want to take that away from anyone after all this movie will probably really speak
to asian communities and individuals especially asian women which is an incredibly special thing
i'm personally more interested in hearing how much they saw themselves in this story and these
characters compared to getting the perspective of a pasty white boy now there's nothing wrong with
pasty white boy perspectives on a movie intended for all audiences but when a movie is so rooted in
a certain cultural context it's important to hear the thoughts of people who come from a similar
cultural context and not drown their voices out this is a really good sentiment and i like
where he's going here and to be clear i don't think chaprelis is required to do anything
but it is a little funny to me that you are talking about lifting asian voices while also
being one of the top reviewers on youtube trashing this film ultimately this is not his fault
people choose what to watch you can recognize your holes in understanding and relating to a specific
source material but to harp on elevating voices of people in the asian community i feel like
there could have been a thought to actually bring up some asian critics or reviewers
it just feels like a band-aid to put on a critical view as a means to be like
i'm big male boy who cares what i have to say and this is not to play an i'm better card but i'm
about action and i went through and found a whole list of asian critics perspectives on this film
that are on screen right now and will be linked down below i highly recommend checking them out
if you want a different perspective on this film just pick a random one they're
all really well done also feel free to shout out any critics or creators you know in the comments
to add a bow on to this because i don't think this is necessarily a chef list or
a dumb critic problem it's more a society look in the mirror problem we love to feed
off negativity and give so much attention to it including myself because that's what i'm doing
in this very video but so much so that i saw more people mad about the turning red critic
than people celebrating it being out and all these algorithms adjust to what you want to see
and feeding you that i've been weaning myself off social media for a while mostly because a lot of
film stuff is exhaustingly repetitive and think good thing actually bad thing misunderstood cycle
so anything i interact with will be shown way more often and as soon as i started
looking for positive reviews it immediately switched to a lot of people celebrating and
really enjoying this movie and sometimes i think that can get lost in the shuffle when
you focus all your attention on one bad critic review what i'm saying is maybe this is a good
learning lesson to not fuel the negativity cycle find stuff that really resonates with you on a
deep and personal wait roger ebert hates joe dirt gotta go dance in the rain later haters